Oh, you who believe! Fear Allah, and seek a means of access to Him, and struggle on His way; perhaps you will succeed! (Koran 5:35) Commentary: . . . God commands believers to practice the fear of Him. This corresponds to what is called . . . the "station of repentance" which is the basis of all progress on the Way and the key which permits one to arrive at the "station of realization". . . . After that God says to us: "And seek a means of access to Him" . . . There is absolute unanimity among the People of Allah on the fact that, in the Way toward Gnosis, a "means of access", that is to say, a master, is indispensable. However, at the beginning of the Way he can be satisfied with books which deal with pious behavior and with spiritual combat in its most general sense. "And struggle on His Way": this is an order to do battle after having found a master. It is a matter of a special holy war (jihad), which is carried out under the command of the master and according to the rules which he prescribes. One cannot have confidence in a spiritual combat carried on in the absence of the master, except in very exceptional cases. . . . The dispositions of beings are varied, their temperaments are very different one from another and something which is profitable for one can be harmful for another.

Turn your face toward the sacred Mosque (Koran 2:144,149,150) Commentary: This means: "Turn the [divine] face which is particular to you. . . ." This face is the secret (sirr) through which your spirit subsists. . . . It is the source of man's being and the command [formulated in the verse] is in reality concerned with this. God . . . does not consider your exterior form but only your heart - which is the "divine face" proper to each of you, and it is this "divine face" which, in you, "contains" God even though His sky and His earth cannot contain Him. . . . He who turns (toward the sacred Mosque} with his body alone, without also turning this face, has not truly turned. . . . He who looks with his finite eye only sees finite things - bodies, colors or surfaces. He who looks with the eye of his hidden spirit sees the hidden things - spiritual beings, forms of the world of the absolute Imagination, jinns - all of which are still only created beings and therefore veils. But he who looks with his face, that is to say, his secret (sirr), sees the face which God has in each thing; for, in truth, only Allah sees Allah, only Allah knows Allah. . . . As for the "sacred Mosque" . . . , although this term applies literally to the Mosque perceived by the senses, it should be understood as designating the degree which totalizes all the divine Names, that is to say the degree of the divinity which is the "place of the prostration" - of the prostration of the heart, not of the body.

If the divine Mercy grants him the knowledge of himself, then his adoration will be pure; and, for him, paradise and hell, recompense, spiritual degrees and all created things will be as though God had never created them. He will not accord them any importance, nor will he take them into consideration, except to the extent that it is prescribed by the divine Law and Wisdom. For then he will know Who is the sole Agent.

The first "station of separation" corresponds to the state of the ordinary man who perceives the universe as distinct from God. Starting from here, the initiatic itinerary leads the being first to extinction in the divine Unity, which abolishes all perception of created things. But spiritual realization, if it is complete, arrives afterwards at the "second station of separation" where the being perceives simultaneously the one in the multiple and the multiple in the one.

When the sight will be dazed,when the moon will be eclipsed, when the sun and moon will be in conjunction, on that day man will say: "Where to flee?' But there is no refuge. (Koran 75:7-11) Commentary: "When the sight will be dazed"; when it will be stunned and perplexed. This relates to the moment when the theophanies begin, for the being has no previous knowledge of what he is now contemplating, no familiarity with what he is seeing. The "moon" symbolizes the servant in his contingency, and the "eclipse" his disappearance: that is to say, the evidence that his being is borrowed and does not belong to him himself for he "is" only in a metaphorical way. . . . The sun symbolizes the Lord - may He be exalted! - just as the moon symbolizes the servant. Their "conjunction" symbolizes the degree of the "union of the union" (jam' al-jam'), which is the ultimate degree, the greatest deliverance and the supreme felicity; and consists in seeing at the same time the creation subsisting by God, and God manifesting Himself by His creation. . . . The gnostic then asks "Where to flee?" because of the violence of the perplexity provoked in him by the multiplicity of the theophanies: their diversity, their fleeting character, the rapidity with which they disappear, the abundance of the divine descents (tanazzulat) which stun the intellect and plunge it in stupor. . . . "But there is no refuge" - there is no shelter, no way out. The gnostic who would leave this state to find repose is warned that the repose and the Gnosis are only found precisely where he is. The perplexity increases as the divine descents increase, but it is these divine descents which are the source of spiritual knowledge. This is why the foremost of the gnostics, our Prophet - on Him be Grace and Peace! - said "Oh Allah, augment my perplexity with regard to Thee!"

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.